The contractor, who was working on the Retravision building site on Bowral Road, Mittagong, sliced through the cable sometime after 2pm on Friday, cutting more than 3000 lines across Mittagong.

Telstra sent out its own contractors to work around the clock over the weekend to restore service.

S&I Constructions site manager, Jason Stokes refused to comment on the incident or say who was responsible.

The building site has been plagued with problems after a wooden roof collapsed late last year, denying the owners a special New Year’s opening.

Some Mittagong businesses had their service restored by Saturday afternoon, while others were still waiting for fax lines to come back online.

Service businesses were the hardest hit with EFTPOS machines down and major retailers like Woolworths and Big W at Highlands Marketplace resorting to manual card swiping machines.

Marketplace operations manager Andrew Josland said not all the centre’s 36 business suffered, with those using Optus unaffected.

He said Telstra had originally told him the service would be restored by Friday night, but on Saturday this was rescheduled to 7pm last night.

“Everyone has been very patient, but it is frustrating getting no information from Telstra,” he said.

Mittagong Region of Commerce and Industry president Bill Armstrong said it was very disappointing.

A guardian of the NSW Master Plumbers Association, Mr Armstrong said tradespeople should know to “dial before you dig” to avoid such problems.

“It’s so simple to do,” he said.

“Businesses in Mittagong didn’t need this. We are battling as it is.”

“Someone should have followed the right procedure.”

Mittagong Soul Pattison pharmacist Maria Nguyen said all three of her lines were back up by 3pm on Saturday and she was impressed with Telstra’s response to the problem.

Mittagong Hotel licensee Bruce Rolley said the TAB was out on Friday night and he had to provide credit for some customers.

Telstra Illawarra area general manager Patrick Nolan said all services would be restored by Monday afternoon, but acting general manager Wayne Rhodes said all the lines had been restored by 10.45pm Monday.

“We had technicians and machinery on site soon afterwards and they worked around the clock over the weekend to progressively restore services,” Mr Nolan said.

Mr Rhodes said businesses could make a compensation claim against Telstra, which in turn would seeking compensation from the contractor who cut the fibre optic line.